Weighing the Infinite Crime

a dialog
presentation

How does
one weigh the murder of a single human being and the resulting loss to
humanity and oneself individually?

Can this question
really be answered?

The story
is the 4th of the 7 final chapters of my gigantic 12-volume series of novels, The
Lodging for the Rose, exploring
the Principle of Universal Love. The 7 final chapters are designed to
explore the dynamics of multifaceted reverse paradigm shifts to uplift the
decaying cultures of today, away from war, terror, looting, depopulation,
economic decay, and so on, towards the growing realization of the precious
nature of our humanity and its creative power, goodness, and capacity for
love.

transcript

Weighing the Infinite Crime

Over dinner that night, Jacky asked me to present the same lecture at the university in Beijing.

Steve' face lit. "That's a great idea."

"It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction we get there," commented Ross.

"Sure, I present the lecture," I said to Jacky, "but shouldn't Steve rather do this, because of the language and all?"

"Why don't you both do it, together?" asked Jacky.

Steve agreed.

I told Jacky that I would like to take this one step further. I told him that I would like to offer a scholarship to three students there, of ten thousand Hong Kong dollars each, to be given to students who are best qualified to repeat our lecture in other universities, and another ten thousand on top of that, for their help in creating a video presentation that can be made available to the public television networks and to other colleges and universities.

Jacky shook his head. "I can't fund this," he said sadly, "there is no money for this kind of thing in the budget. The Universities may have some, but not that much, nor would they be willing to spend it on this."

"I will fund it myself," I said to Jacky. "There never has been any money available in the public purse for what is most essential to society. I know that. It has been like that for decades in America. It appears that your people too, have been educated by the fondi in the same manner, to disregard what is most essential for your survival as a nation. Of course, the people of the fondi don't want you to survive. They want to destroy you. Why do you think the imperials have surrounded China with a network of air bases? Still, there are a few people in the world, a precious few, who are willing to put their money on the line in order to fund these kinds of emergency projects that can really make a difference; that can wake people up!"

"Who will fund this kind of rich project for you?" Jacky remarked, and shook his head again.

"Olive will fund it," I replied. "Olive is a very dear lady, with a heart of love as wide as the world. She is a violinist with the Vienna Philharmonics. You probably have never heard of her. She works in Europe, quietly, behind the scene, but she is a real dynamo. She has done some major fund raising for me. I don't know how she did it. But she did it. The money for the project that I propose, already exists. And let me tell you, this is not a rich project, compared to what is at stake for China and its billion people. Compared to that, the cost of the project is nothing."

Steve agreed. He told Jacky a story of a small organization in Germany that all by itself, stopped a bitter war between three countries in much of the same fashion.

He asked Jacky if he could still remember the war between Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. He told him that this was a bitter war, that was getting worse and worse. He said to Jacky, when it seemed that the war would never end, suddenly in the midst of that utter hopelessness one of the people of this organization told him that the war would be over in a month. Steve said that he nearly ridiculed the man who told him that, so hopeless had the situation become. Steve said that he was told by his contact that this organization had intervened, and had convinced the people of Bosnia and Croatia that they were not natural enemies, but were set up against each other for somebody else's objectives. Steve told Jacky that once the people realized that, they stopped fighting each other. They banded together and defeated the Serbs who didn't want to listen to the truth, and within a single month the war was over.

"The whole project has cost less than fifty-thousand marks," said Steve, "and the money for the project was donated by a whole lot of little people, people like you and me; people who knew that this had to be done to save a nation." He told Jacky, that most people couldn't afford to make the donation for this purpose, but they did it anyway, because it was necessary, no matter how badly it hurt. "Now we need to help China in the same way," he added.

Jacky just smiled. He reached his hand out to Steve. "I'll do what I can, to help." He added that this day had become a most remarkable day.

I told Jacky that the day wasn't over yet, that we had another surprise in store for him, or rather, that Alison had. "But first I have one more surprise of my own, for you," I added. "I have nine-hundred and sixty-thousand Hong Kong dollars left in Olive's fund that I would like to use for similar kinds of scholarships in all of the major universities in China. Also, I would like to make the focus slightly different in each case; some projects focused entirely on economics, others on cultural and universal development. I also like to broaden the scope deeper into history, beyond the Renaissance, which was resulted itself from a reverse paradigm shift back to the humanist intellectual tradition of the Greek Classical era. And I want to take it back beyond that, to the very beginning of humanity's intellectual tradition. During the Renaissance period, Nicolaus of Cusa suggested that Plato and Moses have both learned some of their wisdom from Hermes Trismegistus, from the Hermic writings, which scholars have associated with the early Egyptian God Thoth, the god of wisdom. This means that the Renaissance has its roots in Egypt and Africa."

I pointed out to Jacky that China, too has a similarly rich cultural history with an intellectual tradition that goes back seven thousand years with important cultural periods such as the Xie, the Shang, and Yin dynasties with later contributions to China's humanist intellectual tradition by the movements Confucianism and Mencianism. I told him that China has the intellectual background to stage a complete new Renaissance in the twenty-first Century, and that I wanted to help bring this about. I told him that the economic potential of such a Renaissance is likely of a magnitude beyond what anyone can imagine. It has to potential to cause a cultural uplift throughout the entire region. I suggested to Jacky, that if China were to become the intellectual center of the world, it would surely create the intellectual atmosphere in the region that will cause the natural reunification of India and Pakistan, which share a cultural history that goes back eight thousand years and includes such treasures as the Rig Veda and later the Upanishades. The division between Pakistan and India is artificial, I told Jacky. It was set up by the British Empire for the same purpose for which the animosity between Bosnia and Croatia was created, under its policy of divide and destroy, to capture the territory.

"Of course, You are invited to contribute to Olive's Humanist Development Fund," I said to Jacky. "In fact, China should make a major contribution, and it will, once people begin to recognize the economic potential that is imbedded in developing a rich humanist intellectual tradition. And for that, you might send a thank you note to Olive, for her contribution towards pulling China out of the rut."

"Pulling us out of the rut?" Jacky replied with a questioning look. "We are not in a rut."

I began to laugh. "Compared to the USA you are on an express train moving forward at high speed, but compared to your real potential, you are still in a rut," I said to him.